Best for
Healthcare, retail, and non-profit businesses looking to integrate their payment processing system.
Specializes in
Offering payment processing to low risk businesses in a brick and mortar setting who are looking to streamline new or existing systems and integrate with their merchant account.
Pricing Summary
Setup Fee:
Monthly Fee:
Swipe Rate:
Keyed-in Rate:
Early Termination Fee :
Contract Terms:
Sphere’s main office is located in Nashville, Tennessee.
Originally Anovia Payments and TrustCommerce, Waud Capital Partners acquired the two companies and in 2017 fused them into SphereCommerce.
The president and CEO is listed as Steve Rizzuto.
Sphere is a subsidiary of the Waud Capital Partners. After acquiring the company in 2017, little has changed beyond the name. According to online reports, Waud bought Avonia payments, and rebranded the company with a new name, but kept the internal structure intact.
They continue to provide everything from merchant accounts down to the POS systems to a variety of low risk businesses.
According to their website they work with:
Healthcare
Transportation
Education
Insurance
Municipalities
Non Profits
Small businesses
Despite the rebranding, they are still followed by a long string of customer complaints. In its five years of existence they have accrued over 70 customer complaints, many of them on the Better Business Bureau website.
However, it can be said that they are working to clean up this image. The company has only received 15 complaints in the past three years.
Head Quarters
Year Founded
CEO
Employees
Merchant Provider Risk Tolerance
Hardware & Software
Sphere specializes in brick-and-mortar businesses. They offer both in-person and digital payments as well as a variety of back-office billing options.
POS, semi-integrated and hosted EMV
Stand alone mobile app payment
Virtual terminal
Tokenization
Validated P2PE
Value-Added Services
While Sphere does not specifically offer any extra services, they do partner with Trustcommerce, Health Ipass, and QGIV to meet the industry-specific needs of customers.
Supported Payment Types & Services
Visa
Mastercard
Discover
American Express
Debit Card
Discloses All Important Terms
Public Pricing Available
Sphere does not make their pricing and fees available on their website, however, based on customer complaints they offer tiered pricing that rates on the high side.
In addition, they do charge an early termination fee of $495.
The fact that nothing is openly stated lends itself to there being some level of negotiations with each contract. While the prices are estimated to be high, they may have some flexibility depending on the business needs of the customer.
Pricing Model
Swiped Rate
Keyed-in Rate
Mobile Payment Rate
Virtual Terminal Rate
Monthly Fee
Payment Gateway Fee
Batch Fee
Early Termination Fee
PCI Compliance Fee
Equipment Lease Terms
Address Verification Service (AVS)
Application Fee
Account Setup Fee
Gateway Setup Fee
Annual Fee
Monthly Minimum
Statement Fee
Their contracts are three years with an automatic renewal every year.
The website does not openly state any contract terms, but in light of the potential for contract negotiations, there may be some wiggle room on the articles of the contract.
Contract Length
Early Termination Fee
There is no actual timetable listed on the website for how long it takes to set up a merchant account with Sphere. However, based on industry standards, the underwriting for the account can take several days. The hardware depends on mail time and the software can generally be downloaded and installed in a matter of minutes.
24/7 support is available through phone and email.
On the website, there are six separate numbers for different needs. In addition, they have the addresses of all four company office locations available.
There is also a comment section that looks to link to an email. They do not give out any email addresses here.
BBB Rating
D-
Sphere is not accredited by the Better Business Bureau.
There are eleven complaints about the business in the last three years. They have closed ten of these complaints. However, less than half of the resolutions ended in the favor of the customer. At most they received a partial refund.
In the five years of existing under the name Sphere Commerce, the company has received over 70 negative reviews coming from itself and the several companies that constitute the whole business.
The majority of complaints either revolve around fees being unjustly administered or unethical sales practices.
While many of these complaints are not directly linked to Sphere, the companies they employ also fall under their name.
The Better Business Bureau also shows Sphere having a 1 star customer review rating.
Other Online Reviews
Sphere is very poorly rated among employees on Indeed. The company received a 2.6 star review for business practices and employee satisfaction. The consensus is a lack of management skills and direction.
BBB
Yelp
Total Online Reviews
Total Online Complaints
Lawsuits
If you're in the market for a merchant account provider, be sure to check out our user reviews, our merchant accounts guide and our top popular merchant provider picks